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Home , 200s BC (decade), Lysistrata, Peace psychology

Te Interweaving Treads of Psychology by Rachel M. MacNair

Peace psychology can be defned as "the study of mental processes that lead to , that prevent violence, and that facilitate as well as promoting fairness, respect, and dignity for all, for the purpose of making violence a less likely occurrence and helping to heal its psychological effects" (MacNair, 2003). Another defnition is that " seeks to develop theories and practices aimed at the prevention and mitigation of direct and . Framed positively, peace psychology promotes the nonviolent management of confict and the pursuit of social justice, what we refer to as peacemaking and peacebuilding, respectively" (Christie, Wagner, & Winter, 2000). Tough peace psychology has links within all branches of psychology, there are especially strong links to social psychology, political psychology, community psychology, and positive psychology.

Peace psychologists have developed a number of themes over the years. Te psychological causes of and other forms of violence is one such theme, as well as the psychological consequences. Along with these are the causes and consequences of behavior intended to counter violence, commonly referred to as nonviolence or nonviolent action. Other remedies to violent behavior include and confict resolution. In early years, focus was on international affairs. Trough time those interested in peace psychology have more commonly thought that other forms of violence are precursors to war, share with war many of the same causes and consequences, and are threats to peace even in the absence of outright war. Tese include domestic violence, hate crimes, the death penalty, abuses of medicine, and institutional arrangements which foster poverty or environmental degradation.

Roots Most historians of psychology trace the founding of modern psychology to a specifc event, Wilhelm Wundt's establishing the frst experimental laboratory in 1879. Yet psychology has philosophical roots going back to ancient times. In the same way, historians of peace psychology can cite the essay of William James, Te Moral Equivalent of War, as an event that launched the sub-discipline of peace Interweaving Treads of Peace Psychology 2 Rachel M. MacNair psychology. Yet peace psychology builds on long- standing musings about the mental processes and behavior of war and peace.

In ancient Judah and Israel, several prophets proposed (to put it in psychological terms) that the cause of war was continued adherence to unhealthy social norms which included exploitation of the poor, greed, lying, and worship of multiple gods that approved such behavior. Tey advocated that establishment of peace required adherence to standards of behavior that were universal and involved justice, care for the poor and attention to only one divine authority.

In ancient , Siddartha Gotama Buddha (c. 563-c. 483 BC) proposed that suffering was caused by desires, and peace would be found through the discipline of detachment. He offered several principles, including compassion and nonviolence, as essential to the individual's spiritual well-being. In the 200s BC, a war-prone king named Ashoka converted to the Buddhist point of view with an immediate effect of establishing a much more peaceful kingdom in his portion of India.

In ancient , Confucius (c. 551- c. 471 BC) proposed that war came from disharmony and would be best remedied when individuals conform to an ideal harmonious and hierarchical social order. By contrast, Lao Tse (c. 604 - c. 531 BC) offered the Tao Te Ching, which suggested individuals should ignore social dictates and seek to be in tune with the patterns of the universe involving balance, harmony, and compassion.

Te ancient Greek playwright (c. 447 - c. 380 BC) suggested in his play that the psychology of war was that of the arrogance of men and their lust for political power. Te play was a comedy in which the women of the opposing sides, lacking the same arrogance, coordinated a to stop the fghting. First-century Middle Eastern Christian writer James, one of three leaders in the Jerusalem Church, author of an epistle, and by tradition the brother of Jesus, proposed as a psychological cause of war that people had excessive desires for material wealth or prestige that they could not get, and that people were bent on murder when envious and wanting something they cannot have (James 4:1-2). In the same era, people circulated Gospels and letters for the new movement which recommended loving one's enemies, character development, charity works, Interweaving Treads of Peace Psychology 3 Rachel M. MacNair spiritual disciplines, human equality and concern for the poor, acceptance of martyrdom if necessary, and other practices which relate to establishing peace.

More recently, seventeenth-century Czech education reformer Jan Amos Comenius (1592-1670) proposed that the means to peace is education which is international and universal. Beginning in 1628, he published a series of books on educating for understanding between countries of different religions, languages, and ways of life. He argued that all should be educated with universally-shared knowledge regardless of gender or social class. He was invited to several European countries to help reform schools, and earned the title "Teacher of Nations."

Early nineteenth-century English Quaker writer Jonathan Dymond (1796-1828) wrote a treatise on the causes and effects of war, collecting and articulating in a coherent framework the ideas of many Quakers and other pacifsts of the time (Dymond, 1824). He used philosophical reasoning that foreshadows many current psychological concepts. Quotations from his work could be used to illustrate, among other things, the psychological dynamics of arms races, the effect of war on violent behavior of a community afer it is over, the pressures of destructive obedience to authority, habits and associations, the sequential steps or "slippery slope," the dynamics of noncooperation, stress causing over-simplifed thinking in policy-makers, and even the use of war as a diversion from scandal as portrayed more recently in the Hollywood movie Wag the Dog (Levinson, 1998). Peace psychologists developed each of these themes throughout the twentieth century with psychological research.

In 1905, American writer Mark Twain wrote the short story called "Te War Prayer." Tis is still used as a classic literary description of the phenomenon of "war hysteria," a colloquial term for a state of mind which is enthusiastic about war, ignores its predictable effects, oversimplifes both the villainy of the enemy and the issues involved in the dispute, and uses reasoning starkly different from everyday life, making it puzzling to those not caught up in its emotion. Later psychologists like William James (1910) and Lawrence LeShan (1992) tried to defne further and explain the phenomenon. Mark Twain also proposed that greed was a motivation toward war in his parody of "Te Battle Hymn of the Republic." (Both Twain works can be found in Anderson, 1972). Interweaving Treads of Peace Psychology 4 Rachel M. MacNair

Early Days As previously mentioned, William James wrote the classic essay Te Moral Equivalent of War in 1910. James was of course prominent in establishing the feld of psychology and wrote what has become a classic introductory textbook, Te Principles of Psychology (1890) which had widespread use for decades. With this essay, James also set the stage for the sub-discipline of peace psychology, though the term was not yet current. Te essay argues that the aspects of war that make it psychologically appealing should be replaced by nonviolent alternatives that achieve the same appeal. James identifed six such aspects. One was pride in one's self coming from belonging to and helping a greater group. Tis gives a sense of vitality as part of a vast undertaking. Te second was that war can give meaning and purpose to an otherwise boring life. Tirdly, it can allow for projection of self- doubts or self- hatred onto someone else. Anxieties are re-directed to a more comfortable target. Fourth, group cohesion improves when faced with an external threat. Arguments stop when there is a common enemy. When the war is over, quarrels return. Many remember fondly the sense of unity. Fifh, some admirable virtues are involved. Tese include discipline, courage, and self-sacrifce for the greater good. People like to think of themselves as having and demonstrating such qualities. Finally, the anxiety of uncertainty vanishes when war hysteria arrives. Later peace psychologists have further developed each of these concepts.

Te development of the nonviolent alternatives has also continued throughout the twentieth century. Vast grassroots movements provided the experience necessary for more sophisticated theoretical developments. In fact, if the current population of all the countries which were touched by major nonviolent movements in the twentieth century were added together, the fgure would be almost three billion people, or 64% of humanity (Wink, 1998, pp. 116-117), providing a rich base for studies that are still on-going.

Meanwhile, early luminaries of psychology had their own activities relating to peace behavior. For example, Ivan Pavlov, famous for experiments on conditioned responses, in 1930 promoted a petition arguing "that the present armament policies do not furnish any safety to the peoples of the world and in fact, lead all nations to economic disaster. Tat this policy makes a new war inevitable. Tat in the future every war will be a war of extermination. Tat the declaration of peace in behalf of governments remain futile as long as these governments keep on delaying Interweaving Treads of Peace Psychology 5 Rachel M. MacNair disarmament, which should be the logical sequel to renouncing war" (Nathan & Norden. 1968, p. 106).

Also being developed in this time period was the idea that a major part of establishing peace required education for peace. As early as 1912, Maria Montessori starting publishing a series of books in various languages on her teaching method. She had set up a school in a slum in in 1907 to help students prosper in poverty. She argued that children who are not trained to follow authoritarian teachers are less likely to follow rulers urging them to war. Her method of teaching involved offering a dynamic curriculum from which students choose what to study. Te Montessori teaching method became more developed and popular throughout the next decades.

Peace education efforts saw a surge of growth at the beginning of the twentieth century, with Europeans and Americans forming peace societies and warning against the saber rattling that led to World War I. In 1912, the School Peace League had chapters in nearly every state of the United States. Between the world , many teachers thought schools had encouraged war by indoctrinating children in . Tey taught international studies so students would be more understanding of different cultures (Scanlon, 1959).

Further thinking on the psychological causes of war came in 1927 from William McDougall, in a book called Janus: Te Conquest of War. McDougall had served in a British hospital during World War I and was thereby motivated to study peace strategies. Among major causes of war he listed the build-up of weapons which made others fear armed aggression, and the spirit of nationality. He thought minor causes of war included the weapons manufacturers, certain business groups and politicians, and humanity's natural pugnacity. For war prevention, he suggested the principle of having an international court of justice backed up by an international police force and a small international air force, strategically stationed.

In further work on the psychology of war, in a 1931 book, McDougall argued that technology will not lead to security. He actually predicted the coming of nuclear weapons: "if some physicist were to realize the brightest dream of this kind and teach us to unlock the energy within the atom, the whole race . . . would live under Interweaving Treads of Peace Psychology 6 Rachel M. MacNair the threat of sudden destruction, through the malevolence of some cynic, the inadvertence of some optimist, or the benevolence of some pessimist" (p. 44-45).

Since conficts are commonly precursors to war and to other forms of communal violence, the study of nonviolent means to resolve conficts has always been a major thread of peace psychology. In 1924, social psychologist Mary Parker Follet published Creative Experience, a book in which she pioneered the concept of resolving conficts by integrating instead of balancing interests. She proposed that this is a preferable alternative to either domination or compromise, in that outcomes are designed to address the roots of the confict. It is an interest- based approach that leads to win-win solutions rather than an insistence that one side must lose or that both sides must lose at least partly. When interests are considered rather than positions, positions can change so that all interests can be better accommodated. Tis allows for some creativity in addressing those interests. Follet suggested that while it is best for us to avoid certain conficts, others result from diversity. Conficts resulting from diversity can lead to creative improvements. Peace psychologists still generally agree that we need not eliminate conficts, but rather fnd ways to have them serve creative rather than destructive ends.

Follet made it clear in the introduction to her book that her training was in psychology, and the beginning chapters developed psychological concepts. She was also interested in an interdisciplinary approach and did have experts in other felds help her develop her thesis. Her primary application is to conficts in law, though she uses the concepts across various kinds of conficts. Interestingly, one of the minor applications to confict in her book had a major impact in subsequent years: those who study business management found her ideas infuential. Much of the confict resolution work has been applied in the area of business , experience which later proved helpful in international .

Te Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) was established in 1936, and received divisional status in the American Psychological Association (APA) in 1937 with Goodwin Watson as its frst president. SPPSI provided support for applied psychology in areas such as the study of war, racial prejudice, and industrial confict. It is still a strong organization today. Troughout the decades since, it has been a major gathering place for peace psychologists, though Division 48 of APA was established in 1988 to be more exclusively focused on peace Interweaving Treads of Peace Psychology 7 Rachel M. MacNair psychology. (For more extensive histories of SPSSI, see Capshew, 1996; Finison, 1979; Harris, Unger, & Stagner, 1986; Harris & Nicholson, 1998; Herman, 1995; Jacobs, 1989; Kimmel, 1997; Krech & Cartwright, 1956; Levinger, 1986.)

World War II naturally brought about much more intense interest in the subject of war and peace. In 1944, while the war was still raging, conversations among 25 psychologists led to the issuance of a statement: "Human Nature and Peace: A Statement by Psychologists." With funding from SPSSI, it was mailed to all 3,803 members of APA. Of the 50% who responded, 99% agreed with the statement. On April 5, 1945, the Statement was released to the press and public officials with 2,038 signatures. Te statement (Murphy, 1945) had ten principles, which are summarized: 1. War can be avoided, and is not inevitable. 2. Te coming generation (children) should be a focus of attention. 3. Group hatreds can be controlled through education and experience. 4. All branches of the human family – all races – need to be allowed equal participation in collective security. 5. Peoples must participate in planning their own destiny. 6. Rewards and punishments in defeated peoples should be clear and consistent. 7. Relief and rehabilitation done well can increase self-respect and self-reliance; done poorly, dollar imperialism can bring resentment. 8. Te root desires of common people are the safest guide for framing peace. 9. Te trend of human relationships is toward ever wider units of collective security. 10. Commitments now may prevent post-war apathy. Po st-World War II In the post-war years, there was a furry of writings internationally on applying psychology to prevention of war (Murphy, 1945; Broser, 1947; Ibrahim, 1949; Read, 1949; Cantril, 1950; Hugenholtz, 1950; van der Horst, 1950; Pear, 1950; Kisker, 1951; Kubo, 1952). Also from 1945 to 1949, committees and task forces were formed in SPSSI, APA, and the Social Science Research Council to deal with the new aspect of war that had never existed before: a world order with atomic weapons of mass destruction. Te committees were short-lived and lacked resources, but they did begin a concept of a role for psychology in war and peace issues. (A detailed account can be found in Jacobs, 1989).

As part of this post-war activity, SPSSI issued a report authored by David Krech (1946) which opens: "Atomic energy has become a psychological problem." Te report offered a 6-point program, and was published in the American Psychologist. Features of it received widespread media attention and positive response. A summary of the 6 points: (a) the real danger of the atomic bomb should be made Interweaving Treads of Peace Psychology 8 Rachel M. MacNair clear to all; (b) serious and intelligent action is needed for international friendship; (c) international control of atomic energy must be established; (d) we must stop making atomic bombs immediately; (e) civilian control of atomic energy must be established right away; (f) the possible benefts of atomic energy should be developed. Later social activists would be far more skeptical of nuclear energy, as they formed an anti-nuclear energy movement which was especially strong in the 1970s and 1980s. Tis movement was, however, based on further information about nuclear hazards which was unavailable in 1946.

As further illustration of common thinking among those psychologists interested in studying peace, in 1950 Hadley Cantril published an edited volume, Tensions Tat Cause Wars. It included a "Common Statement" signed by eight psychologists, each one of which also contributed a chapter to the volume (Gordon W. Allport, Gilberto Freyre, Georges Gurvitch, Max Horkheimer, Arne Naess, John Rickman, Harry Stack Sullivan, and Alexander Szalai). Te twelve points are quickly summarized here to give an understanding of the thinking of the time. Wars are not inevitable consequences of human nature. Te problem of peace is to keep group tensions and aggressions manageable and aimed toward the constructive. To avoid aggression, we must maximize social justice in production and resources, because economic inequalities and frustrations create tensions, leading to seeing others as a menace and accepting "false images and oversimplifed solutions" and scapegoating. Wars are fostered by nationalistic symbols, hindering free movement of thought across boundaries. Parents and teachers need to know when old attitudes are outdated in a changing world, and education should oppose national self- righteousness. Modern swif communication can aid world solidarity but also enables distortions of truth to be broadcast more widely. It will aid peace if nations can see themselves as others see them. We know of no evidence that any ethnic group is inherently inferior, and colonial exploitation and oppression of minorities is incompatible with peace. Social scientists are also separated by nation, class, and ideology, making it hard to some pseudo-scientifc theories that political leaders exploit. Objectivity in social sciences is threatened when investigators must accept narrow partisan views, leading to an urgent need for international research. We recommend an international university and world institutes of social sciences under international auspices. International studies in the tensions, aspirations, insecurities, and education of the young are needed. Because physical and biological sciences have led to weapons, the social forces at work must be clearly Interweaving Treads of Peace Psychology 9 Rachel M. MacNair understood to make the technologies more constructive. Social sciences have a vital part to play. A hopeful sign is that boundaries between sciences are breaking down. We can make it clear to people that freedom and well-being of one is bound up with freedom and well-being for all (Cantril, 1950).

Tere was also a wider geographic inclusion in this book, as it added an appendix called "A Statement by Scientists in Japan on the Problem of Peace." Te American statement was frst signed and promulgated in July of 1958, and that November 59 leading Japanese scholars gathered under the leadership of Nosei Abe, who had been Minister of Education, Hyoye Ouchi, then professor of economics at Tokyo University, and Yoshio Nishina, Director of the Science Research Institute and president of the UNESCO club of Japan. Tey studied the statement and said they agreed strongly with it, adding similar points. Tey brought up as a point that was very important that freedom of speech and opinion is an indispensable condition for preventing war and defending peace. Tis was attested by their own recent bitter experience of the rise of in Japan leading up to World War II. Tey said the warmongers had launched their barbaric schemes frst by suppressing freedom of speech (Cantril, 1950). Meanwhile, a major post-war development occurred in 1947, which would have long-lasting and widespread repercussions. Te British government lef India to its own home rule afer decades of successful by the Indians, including Mohandas Gandhi. Experience now showed nonviolent action to be a plausible strategy in a real-world setting. A subsequent wave of movements sparked by this achievement over the next three decades succeeded in removing colonial powers from several countries. Tis was especially so in Africa, where 6 countries gained independence in the 1950s, 17 in 1960 alone, and 17 more from 1961-1968, so that 40 countries became independent in just two decades. India's independence movement also inspired the Civil Rights Movement for racial equality in the United States. Later successful campaigns in places such as the Philippines and Eastern Europe built on these past successes. All these historical events gave peace psychologists ample material from which to build theory, concepts, and applications of psychological principles.

In continued post-World War II developments, Arthur Gladstone and Herbert Kelman (1951) published a letter to the editor in American Psychologist which asserted that pacifst arguments about foreign policy were consistent with fndings derived from psychology. Tey cited four areas: (a) Frustration-aggression: When Interweaving Treads of Peace Psychology 10 Rachel M. MacNair counter-aggression is an additional frustration, it adds to the increase of aggression on both sides. History and case studies do not show times when force or the threat of force frightened aggressive tendencies out of a group. (b) Phenomenological reality: Perceived threat is more important that the objective threat to determining behavior. To avoid war, we must understand how others perceive the situation. If one group believes its weapons build-up is defensive but the other group perceives it as a prelude to an attack, that perception by the second group needs to be understood by the frst group, no matter what they insist is actually the case. (c) Te therapeutic approach: If the "patient" is a national or political group, using various persuasive and nonviolent methods is more likely to lead to favorable changes while violence defeats the purpose. (d) Te danger of habituation: Training in mass murder, callousness toward bloodshed, stimulation of hate, and centralization of authority are all required for war and can become habits that continue aferward and threaten democracy. Habits of peace and democracy have deteriorated in the meantime.

Gladstone and Kelman said they were offering these thoughts not as fnal conclusions but to stimulate discussion among psychologists. Tey were successful in bringing about discussion, because in response to this letter, an informal group gathered in 1952 for the purpose of founding the Research Exchange for the Prevention of War. Te Research Exchange published a regular bulletin, and had workshops and conferences to encourage research on war prevention. Psychologists were the majority of the group. Te use of "prevention of war" instead of "peace" was due to the emerging atmosphere of McCarthyism, in which the term "peace" was associated with to a Communist threat and therefore seen as something that was advocated by Communist sympathizers. Tis atmosphere continued to severely dampen peace psychology and the entire throughout the 1950s. In 1957, the bulletin of the Research Exchange turned into Te Journal of Confict Resolution, an interdisciplinary journal in international relations. SPSSI took over the remainder of the functions, so the Research Exchange was laid to rest (Jacobs, 1989).

Te American Psychological Association also maintained some activities in relation to peace. From 1957- 1960, on various occasions groups of American psychologists took trips to the Soviet Union, many sponsored by the APA. In 1959, APA authorized a survey of 75 psychologists of various specialties who had been Interweaving Treads of Peace Psychology 11 Rachel M. MacNair involved in peace issues on how psychologists might contribute to "maintenance of peace." Te report was published in the American Psychologist (Russell, 1960) and led to an ad hoc committee which a year later became the standing Committee on Psychology in National and International Affairs (CPNIA), led by Charles Osgood. A progress report from 1962 in the American Psychologist shows CPNIA has established communication with the executive branch and U.S. Congress. CPNIA also hired a liaison/lobbyist. Continued work included meetings, conferences, a comprehensive collection of psychological research related to international relations, public information activities, and a Congressional Fellowship Program (Jacobs, 1989).

Te 1960s Te Kennedy administration was especially welcoming of the advice of academics, including psychologists. Senator Hubert Humphrey also wanted to involve psychologists in foreign policy matters. Tis allowed psychological knowledge of peace issues to fourish Amitai Etzioni noted in a letter that his work and that of Charles Osgood were widely reviewed and discussed within the administration (Jacobs, 1989, p. 55).

Psychologists for Peace was established in June, 1961. It was intended as a frst step toward an international organization. Activities included a "walk for peace" in January 1962, a petition to President Kennedy on the Psychology of Negotiations signed by 500 social scientists, and a workshop on the psychology of fallout shelters (Jacobs, 1989).

Also in 1961, on September 4, Ralph K. White offered a major conceptual development by giving a speech called "Mirror Images in the East-West Confict." White was a psychologist at the United States Information Agency. Based on a study of 1,400 quotations from different sources on both sides, he proposed a universal pattern of imagery between conficting groups by which each sees their own side as good and the other as bad in similar terms. Tose terms include that the those on the other side are the aggressors; their government exploits and deludes the people; the mass of their people are not really sympathetic to the regime; they cannot be trusted; and their policy verges on madness. Tese beliefs tend to be self- confrming. When people on one side sees actions as unfriendly, those people respond in an unfriendly way. Te other side perceives this as unfriendly and responds in kind. A cycle continues. Interweaving Treads of Peace Psychology 12 Rachel M. MacNair

Te New York Times was among many newspapers that covered this in a report called "Psychologist Asserts that U.S. and the Soviet Union Share Similar Illusions About Each Other." Tat September, Senator Tomas J. Dodd, Democrat from Connecticut, put the speech in the Congressional Record, refuted it, and wanted White fred from his government post. Te American Psychological Association came to his defense, with a unanimous vote of its Board. (Jacobs, 1989).

During this time, Charles Osgood (1962) presented his Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension- reduction (GRIT) proposal in a book, An Alternative to War or Surrender. Tis was a step-by-step approach to a tension- reduction strategy, a de-escalation. Te basic idea was to run the in reverse, to use the same dynamic of the race itself to gradually reduce rather than constantly increase tensions. Osgood sent a copy of the book to President Kennedy and received a personal note from Kennedy's secretary saying Kennedy had read it. Later policies of Kennedy suggest he was infuenced by it (Etzioni, 1967).

Developments in over-all studies and research in peace would naturally form a part of the organizational fate of peace psychology. Peace Studies as a scholarly focus of inquiry began as a program at Manchester College in Indiana under the guidance of Gladys Muir in 1948. It has expanded since then and now has some form of organizational presence on hundreds of campuses. In 1964, the International Peace Research Association (IPRA) developed from a 1963 conference organized by the Quaker International Conferences and Seminars held in Switzerland. IPRA has held biennial conferences all over the globe ever since. Its purpose has been to advance peace research and to disseminate its results, promote studies and teaching, and to facilitate contacts and cooperation between scholars and educators throughout the world.

Norwegian (1969) was particularly prominent in peace research and is ofen cited for two conceptual distinctions. Te frst is the difference between "negative peace" and "positive peace." Negative peace means the absence of war and other forms of direct violence. Positive peace is a condition where nonviolence, social justice, and ecological sustainability remove the causes of violence. Te other distinction is between "direct violence" and "structural violence." Direct violence involves intentionally harmful actions carried out by individuals, whether by doing Interweaving Treads of Peace Psychology 13 Rachel M. MacNair them or by ordering them done. Structural violence is carried out by social organizations. Individuals are not targeted, but are lef in poverty or otherwise put harm's way, as with unsafe working conditions or dangerous products or disease from pollution.

Galtung developed the concept of structural violence in part because peace advocates that were opposed to direct violence such as war were accused of supporting an unjust status quo by opposing violent revolution against it. By accounting harm-causing social situations as being also a form of violence, opposition to violence becomes more inclusive.

Both of these defnitional distinctions were part of an expanding understanding of what peace and therefore peace psychology would entail, beyond that of simple prevention of war and the similar violence of genocides and nuclear weapons. A nonviolent campaign which would otherwise be seen as disturbing the peace by raising tensions and causing confict could thereby be seen as promoting positive peace by virtue of trying to stop structural violence.

Te late 1960s saw quite a bit of political turmoil, and as part of this, the Board of the APA became outraged by the police brutality against anti-war protesters at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago. It voted to move its annual convention away from Chicago where it had been set for the following year. At 1968's annual APA convention, American Psychologists for Social Action (APSA) was formed. It focused on the Vietnam War and militarism, with interests also in racism, civil rights of mental patients, and similar concerns.

Understanding and application of confict resolution was also developing well in the 1960s. Te frst problem- solving workshops to fnd integrative solutions were held in 1965 for representatives of governments, in this case the governments of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore (Burton, 1969). Tese were sponsored by the London- based Centre for Analysis of Confict. Meetings lasted over a week. Tird- party facilitators kept the conversation away from zero-sum thinking, where a win by one side means a loss by another, instead favoring acceptable outcomes for all. Whether due to workshops or primarily other factors, hostilities did cease soon thereafer. Further development of the concept led to training of diplomats in "second-track" diplomacy in which such informal meetings can complement and Interweaving Treads of Peace Psychology 14 Rachel M. MacNair assist the formal negotiations, allowing for a forum to air concerns and creative options. When conficts have lasted for decades or centuries and involve ethnic hatreds and cycles of retaliation, then the interests of the parties are ignored as emotions of animosity take over. Techniques of dealing with such intractable conficts become much more sophisticated and, like the conficts themselves, long- lasting (see, for example, Rouhana & Kelman, 1994). One historical example of deliberate reconciliation efforts afer such a confict was resolved occurred with the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Te emotional work of uncovering what actually happened, in exchange for amnesty to the perpetrators, replaced both punitive measures and attempts at merely forgetting which were likely to be psychologically unsuccessful (Tutu, 1999). Further research into causes, consequences, and remedies of chronic conficts has been and is likely to continue to be a major focus, since throughout the twentieth century and currently, these types of feuds are among the major causes of loss of life through violence.

Te 1970s During the 1970s peace psychologists made several conceptual developments, including major empirical studies. In 1971, Phil Zimbardo and his colleagues conducted the Stanford Prison Experiment. Tis was intended to be a simulated prison for two weeks, but was shut down afer 6 days because experimenters observed excessive . Since participants were screened for abnormality and randomly assigned to the roles of prisoners or guards, it surprised the experimenters that not only the participants but even the experimenters themselves got so involved in their roles that they started thinking in dehumanized terms. (Te official web site for the Stanford Prison Experiment, which includes a slide show of the study, is at www.prisonexp.org).

Around the same time, Stanley Milgram conducted his famous experiments on destructive obedience to authority (Milgram, 1974). Tese experiments showed an alarmingly high compliance rate with harmful orders from authority fgures, in the form of demands to continue higher electric shocks despite apparent distress from the supposed recipient of the shocks. Tis helps account for how so many will "follow orders" even when brutality is involved. A startled community of social psychologists ran several years of replicating experiments to discover the variations of conditions that affect the compliance rate. Finally, most institutional review boards shut down further experiments due to the ethics of deception and causing participants to suffer high distress. Te understandings uncovered by these Interweaving Treads of Peace Psychology 15 Rachel M. MacNair experiments are useful in explaining real-world events. Milgram had originally intended to try the experiment on Americans, fnd a low compliance rate, then test Germans to fnd the cultural differences accounting for what was then fairly recent memories of Nazi abuses. Te variable of cultural differences was actually one that caused little difference; Milgram had found a cross-cultural psychological dynamic (Blass, 2000).

Also around this time, in another conceptual advance on situational pressures, Irving Lester Janis (1972) published Victims of Groupthink: A Psychological Study of Foreign-Policy Decisions and Fiascoes. Tis applied a new psychological construct to an analysis of why members of the United States presidential administration had bumbled into the Bay of Pigs blunder in Cuba. Te new construct of "groupthink" proved useful in understanding many other battle and policy situations. Janis suggested that groups can sometimes make decisions which are much more irrational than individuals would do on their own. Pressures for group consensus, diffusion of responsibility, and similar factors can help account for why decisions that ought to have been understood as unwise are nevertheless made.

Developments in the psychological understanding of nonviolence were also occurring at this time. Richard Gregg (1972) published Te Psychology and Strategy of Gandhi's Nonviolent Resistance, introducing a psychological foundation for Gandhi's political concepts. Gene Sharp (1973) published a 3-volume foundational work called Te Politics of Nonviolent Action. Te set covers political dynamics, history, and psychological components. Te psychological basis of political power is particularly explicated here, why people obey authority and why they might withhold their obedience. Leroy H. Pelton (1974) published a book called Te Psychology of Nonviolence, using established social psychological constructs to explain how nonviolent action might work, including the need for cognitive consistency to avoid the tensions of cognitive dissonance. Later suggestions for the psychological effectiveness of nonviolent confrontation techniques include attribution theory, whereby people attribute their own bad behavior to the situation and their own good behavior to their own personalities. In this case, the people targeted by a nonviolent campaign attribute their own violent behavior to the situation, and they can credit their change of behavior to their inherently good personality dispositions. Tis is an interpretation that the Interweaving Treads of Peace Psychology 16 Rachel M. MacNair nonviolent campaigners encourage (Mayton, 2001). Also suggested have been the campaign's deliberate reduction of the outgroup homogeneity effect in its targets as well as in itself, and the strong effects of social referencing and role expectations (MacNair, 2003).

Recent Along with the causes of war and other forms of violence, the psychological consequences of violence, to both victims and perpetrators, has received attention from peace psychologists. A major development occurred in 1980, when the long- standing observations of "battle fatigue" and "war neurosis" congealed into the concept of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Tis was formally defned in the diagnostic manuals of the American Psychiatric Association (1987, 1994), and the World Health Organization (1992). An explosion of research into the disorder and its symptoms ensued and is still lively. It was expanded from veterans to refugees and other direct victims of war and to crime victims. It applies to any form of trauma, but it has been clear from experience that PTSD symptoms tend to be more severe when the trauma is inficted by another person, as opposed to accident or natural disaster. In 1990, Kulka and colleagues published the results of a major United States government study showing that full and partial PTSD were in fact widespread among American veterans of the war in Vietnam. More recently, the idea that being the agent that causes trauma -- that is, killing or committing other direct violence -- can also lead to PTSD symptoms has received some attention (MacNair, 2002).

In 1982, Psychologists for Social Responsibility (PsySR) was founded and focused on preventing nuclear war. It currently remains one of the major grass-roots networks of psychologists active in peace concerns in the United States. Also that year, the APA Council of Representatives passed a resolution calling for a nuclear freeze, a return to a productive civilian economy, and encouraging members to be politically active in pursuit of these (Mervis, 1982). Te resolution was disseminated through the press and other public forums. APA's Board of Scientifc Affairs objected strenuously on the grounds that it is inappropriate for a scientifc organization to engage in social advocacy, but the resolution stood.

Organizationally, it was in 1988 that Division 48, the "Society for the Study of Peace, Confict, and Violence: Peace Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association." was established by vote of the APA Council, a vote that Interweaving Treads of Peace Psychology 17 Rachel M. MacNair

James Polyson and Michael Wessells had especially pushed for (Jacobs, 1989). It had failed the previous year on grounds that APA already had outlets for peace psychology, especially SPSSI. However, SPSSI deals with a much wider range of issues. Division 48 is still large and active. Te Division publishes a journal devoted to peace psychology, Peace and Confict: Journal of Peace Psychology, which frst appeared in 1995.

In 1989, the frst International Symposium on the Contributions of Psychology to Peace was held in Bulgaria and attracted peace psychologists from a variety of countries. Te organization continued to hold symposiums every other year in Germany, the United States, South Africa, Australia, Costa Rica, the Philippines, and a continuing dispersion of venues. In 1994 UNESCO ( Education, Scientifc & Cultural Organization) commissioned a background paper by the Committee for the Psychological Study of Peace of the International Union of Psychological Science, highlighting the contributions psychology can make to peace and social justice.

Te practical application of peace psychology took its frst casualty in 1989. Prominent Salvadoran peace psychologist Ignacio Martín-Baró was one of six Jesuit priests, along with their housekeeper and her 16-year-old daughter, who were assassinated by a Salvadoran death squad on November 16. Tere were four memorial sessions for him the following year at the American Psychological Association annual convention alone. He had been active in providing psychological healing services to the traumatized in El Salvador's war, in understanding the subjective state of the population, and in what was perceived by the government as his most subversive activity, public opinion polling of the population. Tis gave people the information of what was commonly thought, with the understanding that this information mattered. Martín-Baró was active in whatever ways psychology could be used to promote peace in the midst of a brutal war, and he became a victim of that war (Kelman, 1995).

Researchers have identifed and investigated many of the cognitive processes behind various forms of violence. Albert Bandura and his colleagues argued that the most inhumane behavior comes from psychological processes by which original ideas of moral conduct are disengaged. Tey suggested that the idea that these "moral disengagement" mechanisms remove inhibitions has been extensively Interweaving Treads of Peace Psychology 18 Rachel M. MacNair documented in historical atrocities, and confrmed in laboratory studies of punitive behavior (Bandura, Barbanelli, Caprara, & Pastorelli, 1996). Te most effective of these mechanisms is the cognitive transformation of the reprehensible conduct into good conduct, and can be done through moral justifcations, comparison to worse conduct making this conduct seem less consequential, and the use of euphemisms. Other mechanisms include displacing the responsibility, diffusing the responsibility for the conduct or for its detrimental effects to others, especially those in authority, or minimizing, ignoring or distorting those detrimental effects. Dehumanizing or blaming the victim, along with demonizing the opposition, have also long been noted.

William Brennan (1995) developed this last point at greater length with the concept of "semantic dehumanization." Brennan gave various categories of such "linguistic warfare" that have been used to facilitate violence against people. Te people are defcient humans, non-humans, non-persons, animals, parasites, diseases, inanimate objects, or waste products. He offered an array of quotations from throughout history to depict these attitudes, arguing that these attitudes have helped cause much violence against vulnerable groups.

Abuse of medicine is a peculiar form of violence in that it is more difficult to recognize as violence. Te same acts of sticking needles into arms or causing someone to become unconscious and then cutting them would be violence outside the context of inoculations and surgery. Since they are seen as benefcial to the person to whom they are voluntarily done, they are medicine instead. However, if that benefcence is removed, they become simple violence. Yet they might retain the aura of prestige that medicine normally entails. Robert Jay Lifon (1986) found this particularly potent in a book about the Nazi doctors at the concentration camps. More recently, efforts at genocide or eugenics that use the gentleness of enforced sterilization rather than actual killing can use the same mechanism, allowing for a medical approach to hide the sense of trauma felt by victims. Still controversial are the areas of abortion and assisted suicide, whether these are matters of autonomy with their absence being medical neglect, or whether these are matters of killing and therefore, under a consistent life ethic, are connected to other forms of killing in causation and effect. Te psychological role of medicine in war also receives attention, as doctors and psychological therapists both have to wrestle with how Interweaving Treads of Peace Psychology 19 Rachel M. MacNair well they beneft patients if the result is to send them back into combat (MacNair, 2003).

Troughout the decades, various forms of peace education have developed. In 1970, for example, Brazilian Paulo Friere published Pedagogy of the Oppressed, detailing an adult education method called "conscientization." Adults participating in this education strategy study violence and develop and implement nonviolent alternatives. For the various approaches to peace education, there has been an upsurge of publications, practices, and studies of effectiveness. In addition to the original approaches of international perspectives which teach people to be global citizens and regard those in other cultures with understanding, an especially popular approach has been teaching children confict resolution and other violence prevention skills. Tere have been moral and character and religious approaches, nonviolence, environmental, and approaches, along with public education on specifc public policy issues, use of artistic media, and of course the interdisciplinary area of peace studies itself along with disciplines such as peace psychology. Activity in this area is quite extensive. Te many studies on effectiveness of programs with children are showing encouraging results. Textbooks focusing specifcally on the entire feld of peace psychology itself are a more recent development (Christie, Wagner, & Winter, 2001; MacNair, 2003).

Tis short survey shows several trends in peace psychology. In earlier years, the focus was on war and related military matters, with international policies and understandings of different cultures. A major concern of early statements and writings was to dispel the idea that violence and aggression are part of human nature and that war in general is therefore inevitable. Tis theme appears less frequently in later writings, writings characterized by an understanding that the point was established and further work could build on that understanding. In all felds, of course, simple points are generally established frst and more sophisticated points come later. Expansions have included other kinds of socially-approved violence, greater understandings of how counter-violence behavior works psychologically, domestic as well as international concerns, and grassroots activists along with policy-makers. Many areas have not been covered in this short survey which are bound to be missed as important points by many peace psychologists. Examples include parenting discipline styles, moral development, and burnout in activists. Interweaving Treads of Peace Psychology 20 Rachel M. MacNair

Peace psychology is an area that is especially sensitive to political events. Before World War I, most focus was on preventing the kind of wars common to the nineteenth century, with much effort expended in trying to establish that war was actually undesirable. Both world wars understandably brought about more interest in the question of war prevention. World War II also brought an intensifcation of interest in genocide, and in its immediate afermath the questions of nuclear weapons policy. Te McCarthyism of the 1950s and the social activism of the 1960s lef their marks on the practice of psychology in general and peace psychology in particular. Te economic sanctions regime of the 1990s on Iraq offered a new area of war, the modern form of the siege, for psychologists to study. Te long interest in terrorism was intensifed by the September 11, 2001 attacks and is likely to lead to much more scholarship in that area. Many areas of peace psychology have remained constant throughout, but other areas have had to adapt to new realities in a feld where events in the news and grassroots activities in various populations are major sources of primary material.

In the case of peace psychology, the defnitions and events that have occurred have added threads of topics that interweave with each other and interweave also with the remainder of psychology. Te disputes of psychology, such as that over situational versus dispositional variables in infuencing behavior, are refected also in this sub- discipline. Any move toward an eclectic understanding, that various schools of thought and differing perspectives all have something to contribute and can be woven together to understand reality, is likely to be especially appealing in a feld like peace psychology. Te confict resolution techniques so integral to the feld include precisely that kind of approach.

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